The Final Season of ‘Game of Thrones’ Will Air in the ‘First Half’ of 2019

The wait has been far too long for new Game of Thrones. It’s been almost a full year since the climactic Season 7 finale, and we still have to wait even more for the final six episodes to arrive. But now we know roughly how long that wait will be. Likely no less than six months and no more than 12.

That’s still a pretty vague time frame, but it’s the most HBO would share when pressed for an answer at the TCA summer press tour this afternoon. HBO boss Casey Bloys revealed that Game of Thrones’ eighth and final season will arrive in the “first half” of 2019, so one can assume that means a winter premiere at the earliest, and a summer premiere (which would be similar to Season 7) at the latest.

The other bit of Westeros news out of TCA today was regarding the first prequel series. Last month, HBO handed a pilot order to Jane Goldman’s Thrones spinoff series, said to be a prequel about Westeros’ early, dark history with an origin story for the White Walkers. That series, which was recently location scouting in Scotland, is currently searching for a director and will officially kick off production early next year. While George R.R. Martin previously said there’s still four other potential spinoffs said to be in active development at HBO, Bloys told Indiewire there are “no plans” to make other prequels beyond Goldman’s. For now, we can look forward to seeing Game of Thrones stars at the Emmys this September considering the show swept with the most nominations.

In other HBO news out of TCA, Bloys revealed that Veep will finally return next year. After taking a hiatus following Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ cancer treatment recovery, the show’s seventh season will being production this fall with an expected premiere next spring. Deadwood fans will also be thrilled to learn the movie has officially been greenlit with HBO aiming to debut it in spring of 2019. And it still sounds like David Benioff and Dan Weiss’ slavery drama Confederateis (thankfully) still dead in the water, with Bloys saying nothing has been written yet.